


Even if He's Dead?

by KissTheBoy7



Category: Chess - Rice/Ulvaeus/Andersson
Genre: Blood, Gen, Guilt, Suicide, Vomiting, that last one is brief but yeah tw, the kings is pretty much only implied if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:18:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2557727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KissTheBoy7/pseuds/KissTheBoy7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Freddie walks in on something he never wanted to see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even if He's Dead?

**Author's Note:**

> This was really spur of the moment so I apologize for any errors. Please read the tags above for trigger warnings. (Special thanks to Michelle for encouraging me :L)

He shouldn’t have had to be the one to find him.

This isn’t fucking fair. He doesn’t even know the guy. Well – sometimes it feels like he does, like he should – or could, if he tried – but he _doesn’t,_ he doesn’t – he doesn’t know him, not like Florence or Svetlana, hell, not even like Molokov.

_Jesus Christ._

It wasn’t his fault. He’d _tried_ to talk to him. He’d –

God, he’d seemed so normal yesterday, maybe a little stressed but nothing… nothing like _this…_

_Oh God, I should have stopped him._

_I could have stopped him._

He should have seen it, seen the signs. Hell, it’s not like he’s never taken a razor to his wrist before. He knows what it feels like to be so fucking high-strung and crazy and anxious and helplessly angry, desperate, to have no way out, no way to win, no reason to – to…

He _knows,_ he’s _been there,_ why hadn’t he _seen_ –

_Oh God, there’s so much **blood-**_

He chokes back bile and staggers backwards, doorframe digging into his shoulder as he slumps there, unable to stop staring in horror at what used to be his opponent. His rival.

Rival. That makes them sound like little kids, little bastards pulling each other’s pigtails on the playground.

But wasn’t that sort of what they were?

Freddie wants to be sick. He might be sick, if he doesn’t look away from the man in the tub. Everything is red, dark and vibrant, like the tie Molokov had been wearing today at the arena while they all shifted uncomfortable and tense, reporters waiting in vicious anticipation, as the minutes ticked by and Sergievsky was nowhere to be seen.

And Freddie – fuck, he’d been _so angry._

Now he can’t be angry, now he’s just – he’s just…

He wipes his face with shaking fingers and it’s wet and he’s not sure when that happened, but it makes him realize, belatedly, that that choked up whimpering sound is coming from his own throat. He clamps his lips shut and feels them tremble, trying to take a breath. Failing.

Anatoly had always cut a too-thin, gangly figure, and – Freddie would be lying if he’d never scrutinized the way his shirts fit him, trying to imagine what he might look like beneath, if he was lean and muscular or if he was just malnourished or something, stress eating away at him. Looking at him now he fuzzily recalls those shameful nights, furious thoughts whirring until he was nearly sick with them, so angry that he couldn’t help –

Oh God, he’s _dead._

_I could have stopped him._

There’s no way he’s alive now, but Freddie still has the urge to bolt for a phone call someone – anyone – Florence, Walter, someone, someone, the paramedics, _someone,_ this can’t fucking be happening to him, this isn’t FAIR.

This isn’t supposed to be his problem! This isn’t what he’d wanted!

He’d _wanted_ to come here and scream at him for a while, make him feel like a bastard for not showing up to the match after all of Freddie’s encouragement, after the promise he’d silently made him the night before as they shook hands and brushed shoulders.

Freddie reaches to grip the counter by the sink, white-knuckled, trying to keep himself standing.

There’s no way he’s alive, there’s so much blood – an entire body’s worth of blood, enough to fill up the bottom of the basin, stain the white porcelain pink, stick in all that curly hair where his head is lolled, like he’s a broken doll. The razor still dangles loosely from those long fingers, blood crusting under his nails, blood _everywhere,_ and he’s so fucking _pale –_

Freddie does throw up, then, examining it, just up and spews and covers his dripping mouth, shuddering, squeezing his eyes shut and backing blindly out of the room.

No one will wonder why he did it. It was Florence and Svetlana and his kids, it was the damn Soviets threatening him, it was fucking _Walter,_ setting him up, using _Freddie_ to break him down to – to this.

Oh God, he could have stopped him.

He shouldn’t have come here. He’d thought – after that night, after the tentative smiles they’d shared, he’d already been wondering and maybe hoping and he’d _thought…_ maybe…

But no, no, there’s no chance now.

No sordid rendezvous in the gardens at the chessboard for them, no secret smiles, no quiet confessions, no chance that they’d ever –

Freddie blinks and blinks and he can’t get the image out from under his eyelids, a horrific crime scene, can’t get the taste out of his mouth, the regret and the anger and the _guilt,_ fuck, it’s going to crush his esophagus, it’s going to burn his stomach away and bring him to his knees.

He could have stopped him.

(He couldn’t have stopped him.)

He could have said something –

(He wouldn’t have listened.)

Damn it, he could have _tried._

But he’d been so careful, so hesitant, tried to take it slow…

He’s such a fucking idiot.

He sinks to the bed ( _his bed_ , his mind whispers, _his and Florence’s_ , and then he wants to be sick all over again) with is head in his hands and lets out something like a sob, his heart lurching in his chest. _Fucking Sergievsky._

He can already see Florence’s expression when she finds out.

God – he can’t let her see this.

He scrambles for the phone on the nightstand, jams it to his ear and calls the emergency number, struggling to control his breathing.

Fucking Sergievsky.

His wife. His kids. What are they going to do?

What is Florence going to do?

Hell – what was _he_ going to do, with nothing driving him anymore? Not revenge, not some twisted infatuation with the idea that they might put things behind them, Sergievsky and him, just be friends, play chess, write letters.

He feels dead. His mouth moves but he doesn’t hear the words, just a roaring in his ears.

There’s a corpse in the bathroom. A man, his dreams, his future, gone.

All that potential, all the love and all the struggle, all gone. Gone.

Nothing left but a cold, dead weight to be carried out on a stretcher, covered in tarp.

Nothing but a headline in tomorrow’s morning paper.

He could have stopped him.

A year ago, the man in the bathtub could have _been_ him.

He should have known. An apology never fixes anything. A smile never means what you think it does.

He could have stopped him.

They could have been so much more.

_I’m so sorry, Anatoly._


End file.
